Couplet Form Research Articles

Underfoot by Niillas Holmberg

Reviewed by: Underfoot by Niillas Holmberg Graziano Krätli NIILLAS HOLMBERG Underfoot Illus. Inga-Wiktoria Påve. Trans. Johanna Domokos & Jennifer Kwon Dobbs. Buffalo, New York. White Pine Press. 2022. 100 pages. UNDERFOOT may be the "first Sámi poetry translated into English in the U.S.," as the publisher states, but I daresay that its uniqueness and appeal lie more in the book as a creative artifact—and in poetry as verbo-visual communication—than in its linguistic peculiarity. This is a book that questions the limits and limitations (physical as well as intellectual) of the book form, simultaneously exploiting and expanding them (see WLT, Sept. 2022, 16). The reader experiences the text as part of a scenography dominated by an eloquent and haunting graphic theme: a spectral, metamorphic trace that runs throughout the slim and stylish volume, cover to cover, linking the unnumbered pages structurally as well as thematically. Set against a background that changes gradually from pitch-black to dark gray to light gray and then again from light gray to dark gray to pitch-black, this graphic thread assumes various shapes and symbolic identities (esoteric glyphs, electrocardiograms, leaves and other imprint fossils, totemic animals, and shamanic masks), transforming the pages into veritable panels of a looping, folding screen. Some of these panels feature the text of the poem, in the form of couplets, tercets, quatrains, or a combination of two or more of them placed on the lower half of the left or the right page, and occasionally on both. At (more or less) regular intervals, a variable number of pages with no text string the five sections of the poem together. This structure, together with the ratio of written to unwritten pages, the positioning of the text, and the overall color scheme, creates an orchestral texture upon which Holmberg's poetry, like the soloist in a piano concerto, plays a unifying as well as a signifying role. "Time to return to the feet. / Underfoot there's a drum / skin carved with human letters." However, between the feet and what lies underfoot (the complex, earthbound symbolism and mythologies of a traditional culture) are the shoes of forced assimilation, technology, industry and the market, collectively enabling/enforcing progress while eroding "[t]he body's memory / . . . of a linguistic nervous system." Language makes it possible to recognize and interpret the "human letters" carved on the drum skin underfoot, which tell the difference between simple tracks (such as the imprints of forward motion, progress) and the vestigial, transcending power of traces. It is the connective tissue that binds mind and body, body and earth, past and present in the triadic movement of sensing, tracing, seeing ("Sense the touching, trace where the body meets earth, see / the foot"). [End Page 78] Poetry, of course, is the ultimate manifestation of such a language—and of verbal communication in general—and in Holmberg's distinctive and captivating voice (and that of his capable translators) it acquires an almost oracular eloquence, richly allegoric ("children / with ears like leaves, children / with grammar hidden in their bodies") and metaphorical ("Looking through the shoemaker's window / is to mourn stones that can't fly"), but at the same time plain and straightforward, as in the crucial questions that ultimately concern us all: "Is it too late to raise a child / or merely too late to ask?" It is indeed time to return to the feet—if we can still find them. Graziano Krätli New Haven, Connecticut Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Stewart, Dustin. Futures of Enlightenment Poetry

Stewart, Dustin. <i>Futures of Enlightenment Poetry</i>

«Оптимистическая трагедия» А. Холминова: от хаоса к гармонии

The aim of the study is to identify the categories characterising the diversity of the opera genre that have become integral components of A. Kholminov’s operas. The paper presents the content-related essence of V. Vishnevsky’s play “An Optimistic Tragedy”, which formed the basis of A. Kholminov’s opera. The scientific novelty of the study lies in determining the main feature of the Commissar’s portrait, i.e. melodiousness based on the couplet form, simple diatonic motifs supported by stable degrees, uncomplicated harmonic connections, declamations. As a result, it has been found that A. Kholminov’s opera “An Optimistic Tragedy” has all the defining features of the opera of the XX century: introducing epistolary heritage and documentary information into the libretto; polystylistics at the stage level; using the means of related art forms; orientation to mass character; “a director’s split-screen”.

UZEYIR HAJIBEYLI’S “KOROGLU” OPERA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PRINCIPLES OF NATIONAL MUSICAL THINKING

The article reveals the features of U. Hajibeyli's musical thinking in the opera “Koroglu”, which determined the principles of h work’s thematic organization. The national beginning was clearly manifested in the opera through an appeal to the history and worldview of the people, the entire set of musical and expressive means, which characterize the genres of Azerbaijani music of oral tradition. The emergence of the opera was prepared by the composer's research activities in studying the foundations of folk music, as well as his innovative research in the field of musical theater related to the creation of a mugham opera and a musical comedy. The conducted analysis shows that the stylistic renewal of European compositional norms is carried out in “Koroglu” in accordance with the variant specifics of the national musical thinking. The opera combines a mugham germination of an intonation and a variant identity of melodic turns, a mode tonality and timbre variation, a syntactic variation in terms of a couplet form, a variant deployment within sections of a tripartite and sonata structure.

The Gendering of Rhyme: Leigh Hunt’s Effeminate Poetics in The Story of Rimini

ABSTRACT Critics such as Samuel Johnson viewed heroic couplets as logical, rational, and masculine; others, however, imagined alternative structures in the rhyming couplet, including romance couplets and feminine rhyme, which were derided by their critics as feminine, luxurious, and perverse. Leigh Hunt’s use of feminine rhyme in the early 1800s, as well as critics’ responses to his feminine and open couplets through the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, provides an exemplary location for considering how gendered expectations appear in poetic form. Responses to Hunt’s The Story of Rimini reproduce and extend gendered discourse on the couplet form from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. At each point, even reviewers sympathetic to Hunt describe luxuriousness, self-indulgence, and “looseness” in his poetics and his use of rhyme. This article explores both how Hunt constructs alternative gender poetics throughout his poetry, and the extent to which gender and gender expectations affected the construction and reading of rhymes over the last three hundred years.

Musical dramaturgy of the Broadway musical on the example of “Aida” by Elton John and “Next to normal” by Tom Kitt

Musical dramaturgy of the Broadway musical on the example of “Aida” by Elton John and “Next to normal” by Tom Kitt

The Real Tales of Hoffmann: Origin, History, and Restoration of an Operatic Masterpiece by Vincent Giroud and Michael Kaye

Reviewed by: The Real Tales of Hoffmann: Origin, History, and Restoration of an Operatic Masterpiece by Vincent Giroud and Michael Kaye Melissa Cummins The Real Tales of Hoffmann: Origin, History, and Restoration of an Operatic Masterpiece. By Vincent Giroud and Michael Kaye. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. [xvii, 565 p. ISBN 9781442260832 (hardcover), $130; ISBN 9781442260849 (paperback), $75; ISBN 9781442260856 (e-book), $71.] Music examples, illustrations, chronology, discography, filmography, videography, appendices, index. During his lifetime, Jacques Offenbach composed more than 120 musical stage works. As was his habit, he altered and amended each opérette and opera multiple times during the rehearsal process and even expanded or completely reworked them years after their premieres. This penchant for revision, and the fact that Offenbach died before the last rehearsal, left his final opera, Les contes d'Hoffmann, without a definitive version. In his essay on the various productions, George Loomis describes the problem presented by Offenbach's untimely death: "Hoffmann is perhaps unique among operas by having a performance tradition that has conditioned audiences to expect to hear unauthentic music that they are reluctant to be without" (p. 123). In their book The Real "Tales of Hoffmann": Origin, History, and Restoration of an Operatic Masterpiece, Vincent Giroud and Michael Kaye do not attempt to solve the issue by constructing an authentic version of the work. Rather, they provide background information, Offenbach's own rewrites, and past production details that allow conductors choosing performance editions to make informed decisions. As the authors state in their joint introduction, "little is available in English regarding Offenbach and Les contes d'Hoffmann," adding, "sadly, there is not even a decent scholarly biography of the composer in English" (p. xiii). Giroud himself is one of the few authors to address these subjects; his book French Opera: A Short History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010) contains a brief overview of Offenbach's career (pp. 188–94) and includes a two-page summary of how Hoffmann was altered from the composer's original intent (pp. 193–94). In the note that ends the chapter, Giroud alludes to the then-forthcoming Kaye and Jean-Christophe Keck edition of the opera (Mainz: Schott, 2006) that became the foundation of The Real "Tales of Hoffmann" (p. 328n120). In this subsequent book, Giroud expands on the ideas initially presented in his brief summary and, along with the other authors invited to contribute essays, describes a more complete background of the opera's genesis and evolution. Three essays by Giroud, four by Kaye (and one coauthored), one by Charlie Richards, and one by George Loomis form the first part of the book. They [End Page 673] begin with a background of E. T. A. Hoffmann himself and the impact of his writings in France before Jules Barbier and Michel Carré wrote the play that influenced Offenbach's opera. The next three essays, by Giroud and Kaye, detail the creation and reception of the play and offer a brief biography of both Barbier and Carré. Musical versions of Hoffmann that predated Offenbach's rendering are discussed in Kaye's next essay, ending with a description of the composer's unrealized opéra-féerie version of material later worked into the full-length opera. Essays 6 and 7, by Richards and Giroud, respectively, describe how Barbier turned his play into a libretto and altered the text to fit couplet form. The concluding essays, by Kaye, Loomis, and Giroud, detail chronologically how, when, where, and by whom the opera was performed. These essays also describe changes in the work by the various conductors who staged Hoffmann and their divergence from Offenbach's original intentions. The final essay of this section provides a summary of changes in the opera over time and makes a case for Kaye's critical edition, which is based on the extant Offenbach sketches for the unfinished parts of Hoffmann. As stated above, the authors do not intend this edition to be the "definitive text" but rather aim "to provide all the necessary information so that opera theaters can make the best possible informed decision about what version they wish to stage" (p. 139). Part 2 of the book includes...

Evidence for the relative depths and energies of phreatomagmatic explosions recorded in tephra rings

Experimental work and field observations have inspired the revision of conceptual models of how maar-diatreme eruptions progress and the effects of variable energy, depth, and lateral position of explosions during an eruption sequence. This study reevaluates natural tephra ring deposits to test these new models against the depositional record. Two incised tephra rings in the Hopi Buttes Volcanic Field are revisited, and published tephra ring stratigraphic studies are compared to identify trends within tephra rings. Five major facies were recognized and interpreted as the result of different transportation and depositional processes and found to be common at these volcanoes. Tephra rings often contain evidence of repeated discrete phreatomagmatic explosions in the form of couplets of two facies: (1) massive lapilli tuffs and tuff breccias and (2) overlying thinly stratified to cross-stratified tuffs and lapilli tuffs. The occurrence of repeating layers of either facies and the occurrence of couplets are used to interpret major trends in the relative depth of phreatomagmatic explosions that contribute to these eruptions. For deposits related to near-optimal scaled depth explosions, estimates of the mass of ejected material and initial ejection velocity can be used to approximate the explosion energy. The 19 stratigraphic sections compared indicate that near-optimal scaled depth explosions are common and that the explosion locations can migrate both upward and downward during an eruption, suggesting a complex interplay between water availability and magma flux. Reverse to normal coarse-tail graded tuff breccias inferred to be the product of closely timed phreatomagmatic explosions, and deposits of magmatic gas-driven explosions, were observed interspersed with discrete explosion deposits. This study not only provides a framework for more detailed interpretations of eruption sequences from tephra rings but also highlights the gap in our understanding of syn-eruptive hydrology and variations in magma flux that enables phreatomagmatic explosions.

Haiti Glass by Lenelle Moïse

Reviewed by: Haiti Glass by Lenelle Moïse Patrick Sylvain Haiti Glass. By Lenelle Moïse. City Lights Books, 2014. ISBN 978-0-87286-614-0. 79 pp. $10.95 US. Paperback. Haiti Glass inspires a willingness to walk on shards. It beckons one's ears to hear the crunching sounds of what remains underfoot, wrecked, neglected, and one must keep the eyes open so as not to misstep—or miss the meaning of lines. Lines are tricky, and Lenelle Moïse's cadence is not regular: it is not molded in the classical tradition of terse verse, or in the predictability of forms. Haiti Glass is a performative hybrid of poetry, prose, theater, and spoken word. It is a house of memories that contains rooms of expression, inhabited by multiple voices: colorful, edgy, watchful, risky, risqué, and intellectually honest. The first stanza of the poem "gift a sea" illustrates this complexity as the voice in the poem (the poet's voice, one can assume) wrestles with the verbal violence of her grandfather. after i becamegrandfather called me drynasty namesstood small in my kitchenbaking kisses at midnightpraying rocksagainst the womenin my love Despite the "dry / nasty names" that the grandfather hurled at the subject of the poem, the "i" who "became" and who is also rendered "small" in the first stanza is the same as the speaker of the poem. This narrator goes on to rescue the grandfather in the second stanza, offering him to the world as a humane soul who unknowingly gave agency to his granddaughter. Moïse writes: but beforewhen i was tiny thirstyhe bought me a vintage typewriterheavy and teal it splashed under my palms [End Page 170] a thrifted gift a sea in my bloodthe first toolmy damp fingers usedto cool and name my self. Here, the smallness of the speaker disappears and she becomes fortified through the act of self-naming (via a "thrifted" medium that "gift[ed] a sea" of possibilities). Through the precise use of language, Moïse marshals her adjectives, nouns, and verbs to build magnetic, piquant poems. Moreover, as a playwright and a performer, Moïse knows how to hook her audience. The enjambments of her poetic lines carry deep syntactical intentionality as she draws in the reader or listener. "Praying rocks," for example, is an odd yet effective phrase that carries an affective result when it is linked to or against the lover. In a sense, the grandfather's inability to hurl rocks at the lover has resulted in his "praying rocks" so that the lover might still be harmed. Haiti Glass is a careful promenade within Moïse's intimate house, where not a single room is dull and where the poet, very early on, refuses to be a kept doll by maintaining a keen awareness of her environment. Moïse begins her book with the title poem, "haiti glass," which presents a very unusual construction of the syllables that constitute the metrical feet per line. This poem takes the form of couplets that, while appearing uneven, contain a hidden metrical scheme of eight syllables each. Poems written in English often follow the pentameter, which consists of ten syllables per line—five stressed and five unstressed. Here, however, the falling meter, with reversed syllabic line schemes of 3/5 or 5/3 or equal syllabic schemes of 4/4, forms an unusual rhythm or pattern. The last couplet is different, with a total of nine syllables in a 6/3 pattern, which could have been the result of an editor requesting the article "the" to be inserted in the last couplet. Through "haiti glass," Moïse demonstrates her essential control of language in content, syntax, and rhythm. Thus, reading the first two couplets, one is immediately aware of the author's mastery and playfulness in constructing the poem in the way she did: haiti glasshaiti glassstar in my mouth beautiful burningspiky light wish so hardscrapes my soft palates [End Page 171] tongue a shadowof swollen loss language of shardsflicker stutter pronouncing the distancerays bruise gums How could such...

Beginning from the End: Strategies of Composition in Lyrical Improvisation with End Rhyme

Beginning from the End:Strategies of Composition in Lyrical Improvisation with End Rhyme Venla Sykäri (bio) Having studied why rhyming couplets are such an effective vehicle of lyrical communication in contemporary Cretan tradition for over a decade, the first time I attended a freestyle rap battle in Helsinki the expression seemed profoundly familiar to me. At first sight differences between the two oral poetic cultures might seem striking: language, style, communicative contexts, and social implantation—in two socially and linguistically distinct corners of Europe. Nevertheless, the major argumentative images developed within the improvised flow of rapping tended to be verbalized in a couplet form very similar to that in Crete. In addition to the structural similarity of these core units, both traditions share the role of end rhyme as a primary parameter in composition, as well as the argumentative ambition. These qualifiers also characterize the rhetorical structure of several other traditional forms of contest poetry, which I have recently been able to verify in the performance of improvised gloses in Mallorca. The target of this paper is to analyze the structural and rhetorical principles that seem to be emblematic of extempore composition in all three of these rhymed forms of oral poetry.1 The analysis focuses on the methods that improvisers employ in the construction of end rhyme patterns and in structuring the semantic hierarchy of verse units in the spontaneous composition of verses in these traditions. End rhyme is a poetic device that ties verses together with parallel sound patterns situated at the ends of the lines. Although Richard Bauman (1977:18-19) specifically states that "the structural principles underlying the parallel constructions may serve as mnemonic aids to the performer of a fixed traditional text, or enhance the fluency of the improvisational or spontaneous performance," the role of rhyme is often acknowledged only as a mnemotechnic device that is utilized to help the memory in the performance of an existing, pre-composed text. In this paper, by contrast, I will speak of end rhyme's role as a creative and cognitive device in the improvised oral composition of verses. The methods of structuring the poetic discourse by situating sound patterns at the ends of the lines are the very heart of the cognitive practice, skill, and art of lyrical improvisation with end rhyme. These methods further relate to a model of semantic hierarchy, in which semantic weight, the argument, is also at the end of a structural unit of composition. The fact that the improviser has to command a technique of structuring the verses in a manner that is often the reverse to what the audience perceives is largely unknown outside the communities of improvisers. I also address a type of orally composed poetry, rhymed poetry with an argumentative core, which, in spite of the historical depth of its roots and nearly universal distribution, has so far received little attention in English language research. In what follows I focus on the poetic traditions of the Cretan rhyming couplets called mandinadhes, Mallorcan gloses, and Finnish improvised rap, freestyle. These poetic idioms all have end rhyme but they differ in their culture-specific conventions of performance and also in how the utterance as a whole is structured and composed. Mandinadhes represent a short, compact couplet form that states a desired point within its two lines. Improvised gloses are one example of the contest poetry stanzas of approximately eight to ten lines with a fixed rhyme pattern typical of the Southern European and Ibero-American areas. In Finnish improvised rap the length of the strophe can be either free or regularized by a time limit, but utterances often contain 16-24 lines. In addition to the length of utterances, the speed of rapping is very rapid. Both of these factors contribute to a greater variety in structuring the utterance as a whole. Each section of this essay will introduce the basic characteristics of the poetic idioms addressed, give one or several textualized examples of utterances in the tradition, analyze the rhyming and placement of semantic weight in these utterances, and then look at how individual improvisers explain their method. Following this I draw some conclusions concerning the similarities and differences...

Особенности поэтической структуры калмыцких народных песен: анализ разновременных записей

Poetics of folk songs reflects the history and context of the artistic phenomena of the Kalmyk people at different stages of its development. It served the basis and determined the essence of national identity, aesthetic criteria and priorities, ideological orientation and structure of art works. This article analyzes the poetic features of Kalmyk folk songs. The article contains a brief historical overview of the issue which is important for understanding its problems and arguments. The study of the poetic organization of the Kalmyk folk song is based on a review of records of Kalmyk folk songs made at different times (1909-1911, 1926, 1940, 1978) and published in collections as well as those gathered by the author during expeditions throughout the Republic of Kalmykia. The Kalmyk folk song is structured in accordance with certain rules of prosody, its rhythm was formed under the influence of not only music as such but also the tread a horse - a constant companion in life of the nomadic Mongolian people. As collective work products, folk songs are characterized by variability - in the content and form. The poetic structure of Kalmyk folk songs is determined by meters that can be viewed as a specific verbalization of a measure compiled in time with the tread or gallop of a horse - a constant companion in life of nomads among whom were the ancestors of the Kalmyks. Texts of Kalmyk folk songs are in the couplet form and contain poetic forms which are as follows: alliteration, anaphora, rhyme, etc. Alliteration and anaphora play a very important role in rhyme formation in the Kalmyk folk song poetry. Analysis of the verse structure of Kalmyk folk songs collected from various sources reveals examples of different forms of alliteration (strophic (between words), internal (between verses), complete, incomplete). Thus, the poetics of Kalmyk folk songs is diverse in its poetic forms and styles. Rhythmic songs organization is particularly noticeable in the beginning, middle and end of the verses. Alliteration (harmony of consonant sounds), widely represented in the Kalmyk song poetry, enhances the expressiveness of the artistic language. Distinguished by vivid poetic structure, Kalmyk folk songs retain a dominant position on the list of song samples recorded during expeditions on the territory of the Republic of Kalmykia in the early 21st century.

YENİLİKÇİ BİR ŞAİRİN GELENEĞİ TAKİP EDEN SESİ: NEDÎM VE KASİDELERİ

The Classical Turkish literature, feeding from the world’s richest and the most colourful culture, keep itself for six centuries, pass from the permanence test of time with the created magnificent works. Divân poets adopt the verse form of the Arabic and Persian literature while using them under the effect of Islamic culture. Beside this verse form, domestic verse forms are also used with the same or exchanged name. Verse forms are formed with the structural property like stanza numbers of poem, order of this and the rhyme style and differ with the literary trend or term. Qasida is formed from single rhymed verse form of couplets and often written for the praise of reverend and statesmen. The entitling of qasida of this poem is its single purpose. In this work, Nedim who leave his mark upon 18th century and his name is come up with his life age; in fact identified an extraordinary personage Nedim’s qasidas which are social life’s record existed in his Divân are considered and the situation of his qasidas are determined in 18th century classical Turkish poem

Untangling the Palaeocene climatic rhythm: an astronomically calibrated Early Palaeocene magnetostratigraphy and biostratigraphy at Zumaia (Basque basin, northern Spain)

The magnetostratigraphy of a 54-m-long section above the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary at the sea-cliff section of Zumaia in the Basque basin (northern Spain) has been established. The section encompasses the entire Danian and the lower part of the Selandian stages as indicated by calcareous plankton biostratigraphy. The studied interval consists of (hemi)pelagic limestone–marl alternations in the form of couplets and bundles, which range from centimetre/decimetre to metre scale respectively and a few thin-bedded calcareous turbidites. The magnetostratigraphy, based on samples from about 200 stratigraphic levels, allows the identification of six reversal boundaries from chron C29r to C26r at a bed level. The spatial (or temporal) evolution of periodicities from a lithologically coded series is studied with the continuous wavelet transform technique. A preliminary age model based on the standard CK95 GPTS indicates that the basic lithologic carbonate–marl couplet corresponds to the 19–23-kyr precession cycle (21–31-cm cycle in the depth domain) and that a bundle cycle (usually groups of four to six basic couplets) with global periodicity centred at 1.22 m corresponds to the ∼110-kyr eccentricity cycle. We have tuned the bundle cycles to the Va03_R7 eccentricity orbital solution [Astrophys. J. 592 (2003) 620–630] following an initial match of a node of the ∼2.4-Ma eccentricity modulatory cycle in the target time series to particularly carbonate-rich bundles from the upper part of the Zumaia section that displays significant power of a 4.4-m-period cycle corresponding to the ∼404-kyr eccentricity cycle. Consistency between lithologic patterns and characteristics in the eccentricity target is reasonably met although the ∼404-kyr eccentricity cycle is not persistent throughout. The tuning, however, appears robust as it brings the age of the K/T boundary at ∼65.8 Ma. It is argued that a sea-level signal (tectonically driven?) is superimposed on the climatic forcing at the Milankovitch band masking the full expression of the low-frequency astronomical periods. We provide a cycle-tuned duration for all intervening Early Palaeocene polarity chrons and estimate relative ages for bioevents. The cycle-tuned chronology indicates that the CK95 GPTS overestimates the duration of chrons C28 and C27 by 20 and 26% respectively. Our data may prove useful to better constrain Early Palaeocene biostratigraphy of calcareous plankton and in the redefinition of the boundary between the Danian and Selandian stages.

Microfabric study of diatomaceous and lithogenic deposition in laminated sediments from the Gotland Deep, Baltic Sea

The deep basins of the Baltic Sea are commonly anoxic, and finely laminated diatomaceous sediments have been deposited at intervals throughout the last 8000 yr. The origin and composition of individual laminae in Gotland Deep sediments have often proved difficult to characterise using traditional micropalaeontological and sedimentological studies. Here, we present a scanning electron microscope study in which lamina down to 30 μm in thickness with distinct mineralogical or micropalaeontological composition have been identified and described. Depositional laminae sequences in the form of couplets, triplets and quadruplets of diatomaceous and lithogenic laminae are observed with an average thickness of approximately 700 μm. Diagenetic Ca-rhodochrosite laminae also occur within these depositional sequences. Examination of the diatom assemblages suggests that these bundles of laminae represent annual deposits, or varves. Varves are relatively uncommon, and typically occur in small intervals of two to five varves, which are interrupted by more diffusely laminated and homogenous sediments. The origin of these more massive sediments probably relates to periodic re-oxygenation of the basin on inter-annual time scales and destruction of varves by bioturbation.

Aspects of Organisation in Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609)

109 Aspects of Organisation in Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609) MacD. P. Jackson The Quarto Arrangement: A Brief Survey of Opinion Ezra Pound once defined poetry as 'language charged with meaning' and distinguished three traditional means to the end. H e called them phanopoeia, logopoeia, and melopoeia — the creation of visual images for the inner eye, 'the dance of intellect a m o n g words', and the exploitation of rhythm and melody. In Shakespeare's Sonnets all these energizing forces cooperate as equals, in an ideally balanced mix. The poems are rich in imagery, presenting a kaleidoscopic metaphorical display; linguistically inventive, exploiting multiple meanings, exulting in paradoxes, and using the significant word less like a note in music than a chord, so as to stimulate intellectual activity; and, as W.H. Auden said, they are 'the work of someone whose ear is unerring' and w h o creates a sequence of sounds, cadences, stresses, and tones that modulates to express various shades of thought and feeling. Pound also wrote of an 'architectonic' impulse that makes for coherence and completeness.3 This is the shaping, unifying faculty that subordinates the part to the whole and strives for a satisfying temporal progression: beginning, middle, end. 1 Literary Essays ofEzra. Pound, ed. by T.S. Eliot (London: Faber, 1954), pp 26. 2 W.H. Auden, introduction to Signet William Shakespeare: The Sonnets (Ne York: N e w American Library, 1964), ed. by William Burto, p. xxvi. 3 Literary Essays, p. 26. 110 MacD. P. Jackson Individual sonnets show ample evidence of this organizing power. Each comes in its o w n neat fourteen-line package. But this is not just a mechanical matter of metre and rhyme-scheme. Each poem has its own inner dynamic, developing as a logical structure of ideas, attitudes, and emotions that are resolved, as in a piece of music, in the couplet close. 'In its Shakespearean incarnation', says Helen-Vendler, 'the sonnet is a system in motion, never immobile for long, and with several subsystems going their way within the whole.' But each 'system in motion' achieves its point of rest and closure. Vendler, in her recent book, is chiefly concerned with h o w each sonnet is organized, and with certain structural principles that are c o m m o n to nearly all. She points, for instance, to what she terms 'the couplet tie', by which the Shakespearean sonnet form's concluding couplets — often judged redundant or unconvincing — are integrated into the total scheme as an enactment of shifting feelings. Key words in the preceding quatrains are almost invariably picked up in the last two lines. Vendler provides a brilliant analysis of those sets of relations among syntactic, metrical, imagistic, grammatical, and lexical units that give such extraordinary variety within the constraints of the iambic pentameter, three-quatrainplus couplet form. Her introduction has a section headed 'The Architecture of the Sonnet'. A Shakespearean sonnet is fraught with Pound's 'architectonic' intent. But what of the whole Quarto sequence? Does it show similar evidence of Shakespeare's shaping hand — of organization, architecture, design? Is it, in any significant sense, an artifact, greater than the s u m of its component parts? Are those carefully formed fourteen-line units built into a larger structure, or is the Quarto l i t t l e more than a rubble-heap of assorted bricks? Shakespeare's Sonnets, numbered 1 to 154, were published in a Quarto of 1609, together with the 329-line poem in rhyme royal 'A Lover's Complaint'. Because the enigmatic dedication was signed with the initials not of the poet but of the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, and the text suffers from many misprints, i t has been widely assumed that 4 Helen Vendler, The Art ofShakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 22. Aspects ofOrganisation in Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609) 111 Shakespeare was in no way responsible for the Quarto publication. In contrast, the early narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, were openly dedicated to the Earl of Southampton by Shakespeare himself and were virtually error-free. So the Quarto order of the sonnets has been judged unauthoritative and...

Teaching Eighteenth-Century Poetry.

Aside from the fact that the various periods of English literature were devised at a time - the 19th century - most hostile to 18th-century poetry, this poetry also has suffered, on occasion, from the way it is taught, particularly in undergraduate survey courses. This volume addresses this problem by providing a handbook on the subject, not conceived as a generalized and anecdotal survey of teaching, but one which approaches specific problems and specific poems. Divided into two sections, the book discusses problems that arise in the classroom when introducing 18th-century verse to undergraduates, when teaching the couplet form and approaching complicated questions of satire and parody, when presenting to students a nature poetry very different from a kind they are accustomed to, and when teaching mid- and late-18th- century verse. Part 2 includes a series of essays, each (a) developing a specific strategy for teaching one poem or group of poems and (b) ending with suggestions of how this strategy might work for other poems by the same poet. The poets considered include Dryden, Pope, Johnson, and Blake as well as Swift, Gray and others.

Prodelided est: a note on orthography

Of recent editors only Ehwald, I think, prints formosast rather than formosa est. This orthography is supported by that of the capital MSS of Virgil (O. Ribbeck, Prolegomena critica ad P. Vergili Maronis Opera Maiora [1867], 419); the inscriptions offer no consistent guidance. Here, however, the intentions of the writer himself are evident: Ovid must have written formosast to give three words to each season. He can be seen, as so often, improving on his model, here the Virgilian ‘mini-catalogues’ (A. A. R. Henderson, ad loc.) of the Eclogues, exploiting the couplet form to produce a completely symmetrical effect. In his magisterial note on the orthography of prodelision at D.R.N. 1.993 Lachmann confined his remarks on the elegists to the last word of the pentameter, and his conclusion is asserted rather than argued. Here we have contemporary evidence that by Ovid at least the syncopated form was written as well as spoken.

Magnetic electronic Raman optical activity of osmium (IV) hexabromide, iridium (IV) hexachloride and uranocene

AbstractMagnetic optical activity is reported in electronic resonance Raman transitions of OsBr, IrCl and U(C8H8)2 in solution. All the effects are observed in the form of couplets which originate in separate Raman transitions between magnetic components of the initial and final levels. These can give detailed information about the magnetic structure of the ground and low‐lying electronic states, particularly the sign of the g‐factor and the ordering of magnetic sub‐states in general. For example, effects in the 466 cm−1 electronic Raman band of U(C8H8)2 confirm that the MJ = ±4 level lies below the MJ = ±3 level. We also use the magnetic Raman optical activity to identify a very weak U(C8H8)2 Raman band at 675 cm−1 with a vibrational‐electronic combination transition.

Commonplace and Memorization in the Oral Tradition of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads

BALLAD scholarship has paid insufficient attention to the fact that there are basically two ballad forms' represented by the Child ballads, the couplet form and the quatrain form, which constitute two different ways of telling a story. Ballad scholarship has also failed to recognize the significance of, and the evidence for, the apparent development of the quatrain form out of the couplet form. This essay is based upon a study of the style of all the Child ballads except the Robin Hood and Border raid ballads. I have tried to account for the manner in which the two ballad forms developed and have proposed a new theory of ballad tradition based upon the conclusions drawn by Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord from their study of the oral-epic tradition of Yugoslavia. Although I have unfortunately not had time to relate my study to studies of text-tune relationship and of continental ballad tradition, I believe that the continental ballads could be studied profitably in light of the account of oral tradition offered here. The couplet ballad's preponderant dialogue, incremental repetition and refrain suggest an origin in dramatic improvisation. Gradually, as the ballad detached itself from improvised dramatic performance and the singer ceased to have the aid of actors and chorus, the couplet form developed into a quatrain form characterized by a complex system of commonplaces that became so pervasive that the singer could and did improvise ballads by their aid knowing only a story outline.

The New Morgan Manuscript of Titus and Vespasian

Under their number 1881, Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins listed ten manuscripts which contain the romance of Titus and Vespasian written in couplet form. Since the publication of the Index, however, at least two more manuscripts of this work have come to light, the Earl of Derby (Knowsley Hall) codex and another recently acquired by the Pierpont Morgan Library. The present investigation concerns the latter manuscript, for which the following description may be supplied:M 898, collection: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Manuscript on vellum (5 5/8 ⋉ 3 7/8 inches). Collation: a-m8 n5, wanting al = 100 leaves. 20 lines. Written (black ink with chapter headings or résumés in red, and rubrication in blue) in England in the fifteenth century. Bound in nineteenth-century brown morocco by F. Bedford. With the book-plate of Sir Henry Hope Edwardes (his library was sold at Christie's, 20 May 1901).